Friday, March 20, 2009

Ellis island, NY



March 7, 2009

Our first stop (me, Jojo Chan and Lalaine Stormorken) was Ellis island. This place is very famous because it used to be the office of the US immigration several centuries ago, for migrants coming from Europe and other continents travelling by boat.

The pictures and display of various luggages, shoes, clothing, other personal belongings of the migrants then are properly chronicled. There are also enlarged photos of letters written in German, Polish, Swedish, Italian, French, etc. where migrants who have settled in America were writing to their folks back home.

In other rooms, there were pictures and replica of the boats and later steamships, that transported the hundreds of thousands of migrants. Or a dormitory for newly-arriving migrants (a 3-level hanging beds per column, generally congested.

One will realize that America really owe its economic development and cultural evolution from those numerous and anonymous migrants who travelled for many days and weeks, just to reach a "dream land".

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